Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/294639
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 13 APRIL 2014 21 'We're only in it for the money…' the suddenness of the volte-face? What – other than the 70,000 p.a. salary – might have induced Cuschieri to change his mind about contesting the election in little more than a heartbeat? As some bright spark already observed in some online comment somewhere, we' ll get to know these details soon enough any way. Just wait and see what position comes Cuschieri 's way if – some would say when, given his declaration this week – he fails to get elected to the European Parliament next June. But I shall have to admit… from this new perspective, Cuschieri 's behaviour no longer looks quite so cracked or pott y. There is clearly a method to his madness… and on closer scrutiny it turns out to be the same method we always see in connection with the mad scramble for well-paid public posts. Far from being deluded or demented, Cuschieri evidently made his own calculations and sniffed out the possibilit y that his own chances of re-election stood at close to nil. He may genuinely have felt that this was due to a shift in the Labour Part y's electoral priorities… or, who knows? He might have used that as a pretext. Either way, he very clearly (and very publicly) sent out a message to his part y… a message that, for the sake of brevit y, can roughly be translated as: "Hey! You still owe me one, and don't ever forget that. So you'd better come up with an offer to compensate for my soon-to-be-lost EP seat… or I' ll huff and I' ll puff, etc." Judging by the speed at which Cuschieri re-evaluated his own opinion on part y preferences this week, I'd say it was a prett y successful strategy. The Labour Part y must have fallen over itself in its frantic haste to prevent yet another public display of disunit y, so soon after the Farrugia couple's open revolt. "OK, OK, just contest the election for now, and we' ll think of something to reward you with if it all goes pear-shaped. Meanwhile for heaven's sake keep your voice down… people are listening, you know..." Quite ingenious, really. Whatever happens now, Cuschieri stands to benefit in one way or another. So does Labour, at least in the sense that it has contained another public embarrassment. The only real losers – not just in this, but in all such pre-electoral melodramas – are the people who will be called upon to vote for all this nonsense in a couple of months' time. And this, perhaps, is the only remaining area where a certain delusion can still be discerned. Through these and other little machinations – all aimed, please note, at maximising the benefit for the individual candidate concern, with scant regard for any issue of relevance to the voter – we also get a glimpse of how candidates and political parties actually view the electorate. Judging by Cuschieri 's behaviour this week, anyone would think he genuinely believes that voters are interested in his own personal welfare… as though they'd vote for him for no other reason than to ensure he continues receiving a nice little salary package, with all the attached perks. Even more bizarrely, he seems to think that we would all be reassured to know that, even if unelected, he will still land himself something else to compensate. Otherwise, why would he have gone to such pains to make his lamentations heard in public? At no stage does it seem to have crossed his mind that voters – even those who give him their number one – will have expectations of their own from their elected candidates… and these expectations will certainly have nothing to do with how well those candidates get to do for themselves in the end. So no offence to Brian May, but – like Joseph Cuschieri – I think I' ll do a little U-turn of my own. The soundtrack to all this pottiness can no longer be 'I'm going slightly mad ' by Queen. It will have to be Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention's third studio album (hint: there is a cunningly concealed clue somewhere on this page)…